Sunday, Boring Sunday
by HalfshellVenus1
Summary: Kid!Fic. Lincoln and Michael do what kids do on a boring, snowy day.


Title: **Sunday, Boring Sunday**  
Author: HalfshellVenus  
Pairing: Lincoln and Michael (**Gen**)  
Rating: K+  
Summary: Kid!Fic. Lincoln and Michael and a boring, snowy day.

Author's Notes: Written for **60minutefics** (for the prompt of "children"), and for **prisonbreak100** where I have the **Gen** pairing of Lincoln and Michael. This is for prompt #67, "Snow."

x-x-x-x-x

"Join with me, and hear the voice of the Lo-ord…" the preacher intones. 

Lincoln rolls his eyes and leans forward to change the channel on their crappy old TV. 

"And the Apostle came… and he _did_ say… 'Those that are faithful, will follow me—'" 

click 

"-- on down to Hubacher's Mercury-Ford Dealership and—" 

click 

"—let the line out fast and smooth, arcing across the water and—" 

click 

Lincoln snaps off the television for good. "There's nothing to watch on Sunday mornings!" he complains. 

"There never is," Michael says, barely lifting his nose out of "The Junior Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs." 

"I'm going stir-crazy in here!" It's snowing outside and their mother is at work again. It's just the two of them cooped up here in the apartment. 

Michael could happily stay inside all day with his books and building blocks and his ratty old Batman doll, but Lincoln is the kind of kid who is always too restless to stay still. He gets up off the sofa and wanders over to the window, looking down on the slushy gray-and-white street down below. A few cars go by, but nothing else. Even the outside world is boring. Lincoln looks across the way at the building across the street, and a blurry shape on the rooftop gives him an idea. 

"Hey, Mikey," he says. "Want to build a snowman?" 

Michael squints up at him cautiously from his book. "Um… no thanks," he says. "I like my book." 

"What are you, ninety?" Lincoln asks. "Live a little! When was the last time you built a snowman?" 

Michael thinks. "Last year," he says grudgingly. 

"So put down the research and play for awhile. C'mon!" 

Michael trails dutifully after Lincoln, still thinking about whether Ankylosaurus is better than Styracosaurus. They gather their coats and hats from the closet, and pull on their boots. Lincoln notices Michael fumbling with the doorknob, and stops to pull Michael's hand out of the glove and put it on again with the fingers actually in the correct holes. 

"Michael, how come you can read big words like 'demonstrate' and 'coincidence,' but you can't figure out how to put your gloves on right?" 

"I'm only seven," Michael answers, as if that somehow makes sense of it all. 

Lincoln just shakes his head. "Are you ready? Let's head on up." 

They're on the Fourth floor, and the roof access is off the Fifth. Climbing up the stairs, they emerge out the top of the building. The snow is patchy, thicker toward the middle of the building where it gets caught on the back of the stairwell because of the wind. There's almost no snow at all next to the turbines that leak heat out of the building in the winter. 

"Over here looks good," Lincoln says. He begins making a snowball while Michael stands there and watches. "Aren't you going to help?" 

"Do what." 

"Make a snowman, what did you think?" 

"Oh." Michael's still looking at the snowball when _Wham!_ The edge of it catches his chin as Lincoln throws it. 

"Lincoln!" 

"Hah-hah!" Lincoln gathers more snow. 

"If you're throwing snowballs, I'm going back in," Michael threatens, brushing the snow off his coat. 

"Geez, Michael. It's only snow—it's not going to kill you." 

"I don't like it. It's all wet and cold. I'm going in." 

"All right, all right. Keep your hair on." Lincoln lets the snowball dangle at his side. "We can just make the snowman." 

"Okay then," Michael says. 

Lincoln wonders how it is he keeps losing out in negotiations with a seven-year-old. That's just how it is with Michael, he decides. He puts his snowball on the ground and gets things started. "You roll the snowball around in the snow for awhile and let it get bigger, and then you clap the snow on as you go to make it tight." 

Michael rolls his tiny chunk of snow around in circles, wrinkling his nose in dismay when it breaks apart into powder. 

"You have to make the snowball firm before you start, or the middle is too weak to take on a shape." 

Michael clamps a wad of snow down in his hands, making a lumpy little chunk. 

"Add more," Lincoln suggests. 

It takes a few tries, but Michael gets a decent-sized snowball that can be rolled around the roof in stages until— 

"Lincoln, my snowball's too heavy to move." 

Lincoln looks over. His brother is wobbling behind an enormous mound of snow that comes up past his knees. Lincoln rescues it, moving it back toward his own slightly bigger one. A little more packing and gathering, and they have the base. 

"Help me with this one," Lincoln says. He can lift it by himself, but Michael's starting to enjoy this, and Lincoln knows how much his brother loves the feeling of accomplishment. 

They place the second ball on the first, packing in snow around the middle to shore it up. Finally they add the head on top and stand back to check the result. 

"It looks pretty good," Lincoln says. "It's taller than you." 

Michael tips his head back a little to gaze at it. "We should add some stuff—eyes and decorations." 

"Sure. Why don't you go back and get a few things then? Here's the key." Michael disappears through the upper door, and Lincoln walks over to the edge of the roof and looks out over the horizon. There's a clear spot far to the East, probably out over the Lake. Maybe it'll clear up tomorrow. Of course, he has to go back to school then. _Rats._

The door bangs open, and Michael comes out with his arms full of stuff. He dumps it in a pile in front of the snowman and starts filling out its face. 

"What _are_ those?" Lincoln sees a pair of round, dark eyes staring at him in a vaguely bug-like kind of way. 

"Coasters," Michael says. 

"They're too small to be coasters." 

"From under the couch," Michael corrects him. He jams something carefully in the middle and steps back to check his progress. 

"What are you making the nose out of?" It looks like a nose from the side, but it's so thin Lincoln can hardly see it from the front. 

"It's the wings of my glider airplane," Michael says. "The one you broke the propeller on." 

"I didn't—Okay, I guess I did. But it was an accident. How was I supposed to know you could only turn it one way?" 

Michael says nothing, pressing two long, thin objects in at symmetrical angles to form a mouth. 

"What—" 

"Nails. From the junk drawer in the kitchen." Michael adds a scarf around the neck, and surveys his creation. "I like it," he says happily. 

Lincoln gazes at the snowman's overly large eyes, the beak-like nose, the stiffly perked-up smile. The whole effect is actually kind of psychotic-looking. 

"I, um… I like it too," he says. 

Michael beams for the first time that morning, and Lincoln hooks an arm around him and pulls him over to draw his head in close. Sometimes he forgets that under all that seriousness and knowledge, Michael's still just a kid. 

"Snowball fight now?" he says teasingly. 

"Lincoln!" Michael's voice is immediately indignant. 

Lincoln laughs, and squeezes Michael's shoulder. "How about some hot chocolate instead?" 

Michael's squeal of delight is all the answer he really needs. 

_-------- fin --------  
_


End file.
